These Robots Wish You A Holly, Jolly Period Of Cold Weather Between The End Of December And The Beginning Of January

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The robots at RE^2 robotics are tricksy devils. In this video a pair of robot manipulators carefully cut out a snowflake-shaped piece of paper with a pair of regular scissors – a feat that, if truly assessed in the context of future technology, should give us pause.

Sure this robot is wishing us a happy winter solstice with its jolly decoration but what happens when these arms become commonplace in homes and we humans are relegated to watching them trim our trees and make our egg nog while we lounge around like great, unmoving mammals. The robots, in the end, will take over for us in our jollity, mechanically laughing at corny jokes and weaving and wearing sweaters featuring Rudolph the Red-Tipped Diode and Santa Joules. In the end they will pack and unpack our presents, eat our chocolate-covered pretzels, and cook and dismember a great golden turkey while we howl from our basement oubliettes. Sure, this robot means well now, but what if his friends decide that our celebration of Christmas is woefully inefficient and a sleigh with eight tiny reindeer is replaced with a supersonic jet/tank hybrid that pounds gifts through our roofs and eats cookies at enormous speeds using a spiked mandible that snakes down our chimneys and is indiscriminate in the organic matter it will slurp up into its bioreactive core. In the end the robots will win Christmas and this is just the start.

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OverviewRE2 Robotics, located in Pittsburgh, PA, is a Carnegie Mellon spin-off. We were founded in 2001 by Jorgen Pedersen on the principles of developing innovative robotic technologies that save lives and improve quality of life. Our team designs mobile manipulation technologies that enable robot users to remotely interact with the world -- whether on the ground, in the air, or underwater. Our intuitive …